


midnight driving

by KitiaraM



Category: Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 20:37:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitiaraM/pseuds/KitiaraM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cherri lives several hours away from her Gangrel sire, Sam. She visits whenever she can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	midnight driving

*BEEEEEEEEEEP*

"Damn! What was that!?" Leskith jerked up in his seat, trooper hat falling from its position over his face where he'd been having a nice little half-doze. This time of night, or morning, he was inclined to let speeders slide, unless they were being really outrageous. He looked at the radar readout and blinked. "Goddamn." No way that was right -- must have reflected off the low cloud layer or something. He tapped the screen, then bonked the casing with his fist. "Bah." He flipped the unit off, then on again. The humidity of Georgia summer nights played havoc with sensitive electronics sometimes. The numbers blinked several times and settled. Satisfied, he snorted and leaned back, resettling the hat comfortably. He'd been having a nice little day-dream (or night dream, actually) about fishing on the lake in the pre-dawn light, mist coming off the water, the plop-plop of bass breaking the glassy surface....

Cherri glanced in her rear-view mirror, even though the state trooper was already miles back. She grinned in the darkness. Now _this_ was the way to travel. At the rate the Challenger was moving, she'd hit Atlanta soon. Time to pretend to be a mere mortal.... 

As the speedometer dropped to something barely legal, she flipped the lights on and the blue glow of her eyes dimmed. She smirked as the radar detector blerked, sticking her tongue out at the half-hidden county mountie parked under the bridge. Moist night air swirled in the open moonroof as she sang softly. "Hey you, hey you, finally you get it, the world ain't fair, eat you if you let it..."

Even with slowing down for populated areas, the trip didn't take nearly the time it would have back when she had strictly human senses to rely on. Just a few hours and she was turning off a two-lane county road onto a half-hidden track. Weeds slapped the undercarriage of the car as she eased into the trees. The ruts were surprisingly smooth, and out of sight of the road were more distinct. Several minutes later she pulled to a stop in a small clearing outside an undistinguished-looking cabin. As she pulled her bag from the back seat she lifted her head sharply. Whirling, she dropped the bag and leaped, almost toppling the man who'd come out on the porch.

He whuffed with the impact but barely shifted position, his arms reaching reflexively as she wrapped herself around him. "Sam!" she squealed, hugging him tightly. 

"Good damned thing I don't need to breathe, woman," he growled as he tried to disentangle her legs from around his waist. She just tightened her hold and he gave up. At his capitulation, she loosened her grip on his neck enough to lean back and give him a cheerful grin. 

"Didn't you miss me?" She tried a disingenuous pout but couldn't hold it as she caught a twitch of his lips, marring the mock-stern expression. She grinned even wider. "Aha, you did!"

He never had been able to resist her. "'Course I did, you little minx." She ignored his tone. "You should--" The rest was muffled by her mouth on his. His hands tightened on her and there were no words for several minutes. By the time she raised her head again, he was smiling in a rather resigned way. 

"Minx is not one of the forms I picked," she informed him archly. 

That elicited a chuckle, as she'd intended. He shifted and this time she let her legs drop to stand on her own. He arched an eyebrow when she didn't release him entirely. "You just gonna leave your bag in the dirt there?"

She stuck her tongue out at him but grudgingly let go and went back to pick up the duffle. He held the door open for her and she entered the cabin. Inside, she looked around. It seemed pretty much the same: one room, with a small kitchen area on one side, sofa and chairs on the other and a ladder leading up to the loft. She tossed the bag over the edge of the loft and heard it thump onto the bed. "All right, I've unloaded. Now what?" She gave him the start of an exaggerated leer, but broke it off to study him a moment. She frowned. "You haven't fed."

He grinned easily. "I was waiting on you. Still a few hours til dawn. Ready to hunt?"

She felt an atavistic thrill. Short as the drive had been, the idea of stretching her legs sounded great. "Sure!"

"And you can show me what you've learned," he tossed over his shoulder as they went back outside. 

She smirked as she followed. "Well, I couldn't have without your help." She concentrated, aware of his eyes on her. Muscles and skin flowed like smoke and a few seconds later, a large bobcat stared up at him with glowing blue eyes. 

"Pretty good," he allowed, nodding approvingly before cocking his head. "Sure you can keep up like that?" he asked dubiously. 

She sniffed, giving him a haughty look. Cat form was especially good for putting on airs. "Watch me. Besides, I can always hitch a ride on your back."

He laughed but flowed into his own preferred hunting form, a bit slower than she had. Moments later a large gray wolf stood before the cat, jaws agape in a canine laugh. "Let's go."

Side by side they loped into the woods.

********************************

By the time they returned to the cabin, sated and pleasantly fatigued, dawn was not far off. They cleaned up and fell into bed, too tired to consider anything more than sleep. 

Sam woke before her, as usual. She always slept a bit harder, a bit longer than he. For once he hadn't had a nightmare; he usually slept better when she was with him. He slipped down the ladder to the ground level and busied himself in the tiny kitchen area. Before long, the aroma of brewing coffee filled the room, and he heard rustling from the loft indicating that it hadn't gone unnoticed.

She bypassed the ladder, hopping to the floor to come sit at the small bar. Her hair was tousled every which way, and she ignored her lack of clothes. He supposed her present job had something to do with that; when you took your clothes off for a living, you probably lost any body shyness. The fur on her legs threw him for a moment; she had told him about it but he hadn't quite pictured _that_.

"Mmm. It certainly saves time, not having to cook, but I did miss coffee." She took the mug he handed her and held it under her nose, inhaling deeply. He had to grin at her closed-eyes expression of bliss. "The main reason I got someone to teach me to keep food down was so I could have coffee again. Well, that and it was getting hard to come up with excuses as to why a college student wasn't eating. One of my classmates asked if I had an eating disorder; I had to do some fast talking." She took a tentative sip.

"I always liked the smell more than the taste anyways, myself." He had poured a mug for himself, but only sniffed it appreciatively. "You want to go sit on the porch?" He eyed her up and down. "After you put some clothes on."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "Who's going to see me out here? I don't think the local wildlife gives a crap what I'm wearing or not wearing." He just looked at her and she sighed. "Fiiiine."

He was perched on the stairs of the porch when she rejoined him, wearing a pair of cutoff jeans and a tee shirt. She plopped down beside him. "I see why I had to put something on. Splinters in the ass aren't a lot of fun. So, what are we doing?"

"Just enjoying the night for a bit. I figure you could use a little down time; from what you've said it's been pretty busy in Savannah lately."

She smiled wryly. "It seems all calm for a bit, and then 'boom!', things go to hell. Literally, sometimes. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in Sunnydale." She sipped her coffee.

The night was far from quiet. Nighttime insects chirped, frogs by the nearby pond croaked, the occasional owl hooted. Most predators gave this cabin a wide berth, sensing the presence of a larger predator. The sky was clear, and without the light pollution of a city, the stars twinkled across the bowl of the heavens over their little clearing. 

He could tell there was something troubling her. She'd gotten better at not showing everything she felt so transparently, but not to him. Should he say something? He realized that a part of him was afraid to, afraid to hear what she would say, and he kicked himself mentally. Outwardly all he did was lean over and nudge her with his shoulder. "Hey."

She jumped a little. "What?" 

"Something on your mind?"

She started to deny it, and caught his look. "Ohhh, all right." She nibbled on her lip for a moment. "It's, well, it's the feeding. I've only been feeding on animals; cows, mostly, but some deer and wild animals too. It's, it's all right, but..." she trailed off. He waited. "Does, does human blood really taste that much different? I mean, it almost sounds like it's addictive, like cocaine. I don't want to, to get so hooked on it that I forget myself, you know?"

"You don't want to like it too much." He didn't make it a question but she nodded. "You've noticed that the taste of wild animals is different from say, cows?" She nodded again and he shrugged. "Human blood is--" he hesitated. How did he want to say this? "It can be intoxicating. And you can get drunk, if you take blood from a person that's been drinking. On its own, it's several times more alluring than even a wild animal's blood. The main trouble is keeping control of your Beast." 

At that her gaze dropped and she ruffled the dense, tan fur covering her legs. "Yeah. I've lost that one a time or two. I guess there have to be some drawbacks. You told me something like that could happen, but--I suppose I should be glad it wasn't something worse." She sighed, and then grinned. "Hey, I always wanted a fur coat!"

His return smile was a bit rueful. He'd trained her as best he knew how, but no one could fight your internal battles for you. Becoming a kindred meant more than just sleeping during the day and living during the night. It was nearly a possession, with the Beast inside you only interested in its own base desires of food and fighting and fear. Every night was a battle to remain 'human'. 

It occurred to him that her grin had seemed a bit forced; she was trying to divert him. He cocked his head. "So you don't want to risk losing yourself for wanting human blood too much. Is that the only reason?"

She hesitated, eyes downcast. He waited patiently as she dithered mentally before she burst out, "It just seems so, so intimate! You have to get close to them, get them to trust you a little, and thenbite them?" She ducked her head. "I don't know if I could do that. Animals, it's different. I mean, I ate meat, before. It's sort of the same. But this, this isn't! And--" she broke off with a darting glance at him before staring fixedly at her feet.

"And, what?" he prodded when she didn't continue.

Her voice was barely a whisper. "Just the thought of it feels like, like I'm cheating on you."

He didn't have a heart anymore, he knew that. No internal organs, really, but still something inside him twisted. He'd tried not to think about her with someone else. He'd insisted on the move, after all; he couldn't lay any claims to her. "I don't own you, Cherri. You're free to do what you want."

She glared at him, guilty worry forgotten. "Why do you keep pushing me away like that? Am I in your way? Do you want me to just go my own way and forget about you?"

As well as he controlled himself normally, he couldn't stop the expression on his face at that thought. She saw it and relaxed. A little. She continued, softer, "OK, you don't want that, I can see. Then, why, Sam? I've been 'out of the nest' for a while now; why keep pushing me away?" she repeated. Her eyes narrowed as a thought struck her. "You feed on humans, don't you?"

He felt his face go stiff and jerked his gaze away to stare fixedly at his boots. "I haven't picked up a girl since that night. Since I killed you."

"Stop that!" Her mug clunked on the weathered boards and she laid a hand on his leg.

"It's true, and you know it. If I hadn't--" He shoved off the steps and stood with his back to her, shoulders hunched. "I should have never spoken to you in the first place. I knew you were different, knew you weren't one of the empty, shallow ones I could just use and forget about. This is no kind of life for a girl like you. If I hadn't--"

With inhuman speed she was in front of him, cutting him off with a snarl. "You stop that right now!" She grabbed his face in both hands and shook it. "No what-ifs, no should-haves, no regrets!" Her eyes flashed. "And what do you mean, 'a girl like me'?"

"You were young; you had your whole life ahead of you, in the sun. I took that away." He stared at her, his eyes full of guilt and shame. "You're right, really. I do want you to 'go your own way'. I've caused you enough grief; I don't want you staying with me just because you feel like you 'owe' me." She started to interrupt and he quelled her with a look. 

"I've done my best to teach you what I know, enough to keep you from getting killed. But it's up to you what you do with it, and I don't want to influence that. And you've done well, so well. You've got a life down there that doesn't include me. Doesn't _need_ me. No," he held up a hand at her expression, "that's the way I intended it. You deserve a chance to find out, at least a little, what could have been." 

Her grip on his face gentled, cupping gently. Her voice was even softer. "So I live in the night now. It has its advantages. Whining about it won't change anything, anyways. What did I have to look forward to, Sam? I couldn't have afforded art school. I would have found a guy I could get along with, raised a familyand I don't even like kids! So a long, boring life, doing things I didn't want to do, and finally dying. Sam, I'm living more now than I did before!" She stretched up to kiss him lightly. He couldn't help closing his eyes as their lips met, but when she withdrew his face was still anguished.

"I took you away from the sun!" he cried. "How can you forgive me for that?" There, he'd finally said it. She had to blame him, had to--

Her eyes filled. "Oh, Sam. I'd have given it up anyways to stay with you." She scrubbed at her face with a choked laugh. "Dammit, listen to me. I sound like I'm in a damned Twilight movie."

He used his shirttail to carefully wipe the bloody tears from her face. "You want corny? When I first saw you, it was like a ray of sunshine walked in that bar. I couldn't look away. I still can't." The tightness in his chest seemed a little less. Maybe he would always blame himself, but if she didn't, he could live with that.

She blinked up at him. "Sam, if you start singing 'You are my Sunshine', I swear I will go bear on you." But she was smiling as she said it. 

He pulled her tight, giving her a lop-sided grin. "My singing voice is terrible anyways. Besides, I think I see you more as Persephone." 

That brought on another chuckle. "And you're Hades? Maybe I should get you a long black cape for Halloween." At the look on his face she giggled. "A mask? A really big sword?"

"Tchah." He kissed her before she could come up with any more crazy ideas. That almost drove everything else from his mind--almost. When he pulled back, he gave her a serious look. "Look, I just want to make it clear: I don't have any strings on you. No," as her faced clouded up, "I'm not trying to push you away, just," he tried to think of how to put it so she wouldn't hit him. "Just take things as they come. Get your school stuff done, think about what you want to do next. I'll be here when you need me. And if you meet someone--"

Oops. Perhaps he should have left that part unsaid. He stumbled backward as her form blurred, and a breath or two later he was flat on his back looking up into a grizzly's snarling visage. "Um. Cherri?" She just growled. He tried again. "I just meant--" the massive jaws closed over his head. "Never mind." It came out a bit muffled, but she heard him. The enormous teeth drew back and she sat back on her haunches, laughing. Now that was a sight.

"Fine." Maybe they'd had enough 'real' talk for the night. Maybe it was time for a little fun. He blurred, and then a large bat sprang into the air. "Catch me if you can!"

She was quick, he'd give her that. Even taking her by surprise it was only a few seconds before the owl was winging after him. 

He didn't really try to get away.


End file.
